Bleach-blond Sheehy aiming to make Limerick stand out

THERE is absolutely no mistaking Diarmuid Sheehy on the Limerick football team.

It’s not just that he looks the very apotheosis of the gaelic football full-back: tall, powerfully-built, broad-shouldered, hard-charging, hard-tackling, the original of the species. The reason he stands out, even from the most distant area of the stands, is the head of grey hair. It is a look which says this is a man who’s been guarding the kitchen hot-house for decades - enter at your peril.

Then you meet him and discover that the grey isn’t grey at all, but bleach-blond, which suggests someone more of the character of one of those flighty fairy forwards than of a Mick Lyons clone. You learn that he’s not in fact a fossil in his mid-40s but a fresh-faced 27.